As this kind of the scanning probe microscope (SPM), there is a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) that measures a surface morphology of a specimen by detecting tunneling current as shown in, for example, the patent document 1. By using this kind of microscope, it becomes possible to observe the specimen at the atomic level.
In addition, a scanning tunneling microscope having multiple probes is used recently. By using this microscope, it is possible not only to monitor a surface morphology of a specimen but also to measure the properties, for example, electric resistance of the specimen.
It is necessary to move each of the probes to a position where the region to be measured locates before measuring the electric resistance. Conventionally, an optical microscope or an electron microscope has been used.
However, it is not possible for the optical microscope or the electron microscope to obtain sufficient resolution at the atomic level and to fully recognize the exact position of each of the probes and a mutual positional relationship between the probes (especially, a positional relationship between probe apexes facing to the specimen. As a result, at a time of adjusting the position of each of the probes, there is a problem that the probe might get damaged because the probes crash each other. Furthermore, in case of measuring the electric resistance, there is a problem that a measurement result is not highly accurate because the positions of each of the probes are not accurate.    Patent document 1: Japan patent laid-open number 2000-136994